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Michael Linares
Michael Linares

22 Followers

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Mar 15, 2022

Tech debt is eating the world

Web infrastructure begets inequality, especially for tech nonprofits It’s a strange time to resurrect this newsletter, but the truth is that I need to write to make sense of what’s going on. I keep coming back to web infrastructure: who owns it and who benefits from it? Marx will tell…

Tech Debt

10 min read

Tech debt is eating the world
Tech debt is eating the world
Tech Debt

10 min read


Apr 10, 2021

Building ethics and equity into software

Wouldst thou like to live ethically? “Most fears about AI and technology are best understood as fears about capitalism… How capitalism will use technology against us.” — Ted Chiang This quote, from sci-fi writer Ted Chiang (via Ezra Klein’s podcast), gets to the crux of it. The ills we see in tech are a direct result…

Product Management

7 min read

Building ethics and equity into software
Building ethics and equity into software
Product Management

7 min read


Apr 10, 2021

Against growth: Building a slower, more thoughtful internet

Unlearning growth-by-default like our lives depend on it Growth is a dangerous ideology. It’s one that’s taken hold across the globe — in our financial systems, in business, in the internet’s architecture, and in software development. Endless growth is not possible, or desirable, and it’s killing us — emissions related to the internet and its data centers account…

Product Management

6 min read

Against growth: Building a slower, more thoughtful internet
Against growth: Building a slower, more thoughtful internet
Product Management

6 min read


Published in UX Collective

·Updated Apr 21, 2021

Frameworks for measuring product inclusion and product equity

A few working frameworks for PMs, execs, small teams, and startups. — You can’t change what you don’t measure — and measurement is a core challenge of building inclusive products. In this post, we’ll cover micro-level quantitative frameworks for measuring product inclusion and product equity — areas like representativeness, product outcomes, and subjective experience — as well as more macro-level mitigating methods…

Product Management

9 min read

Frameworks for measuring product inclusion and product equity
Frameworks for measuring product inclusion and product equity
Product Management

9 min read


Apr 10, 2021

Modular manipulation: Towards radical user choice

Ways to defuse weapons of mass persuasion Software is manipulative and everyone knows it. Companies use various techniques to manipulate users — techniques like gamification, social pressure, ranked content optimized for engagement, etc. — and set these as defaults. Users are give some semblance of control in the form of service agreements and preferences, masking what is…

Privacy

8 min read

Modular manipulation: Towards radical user choice
Modular manipulation: Towards radical user choice
Privacy

8 min read


Apr 10, 2021

Inclusive data analysis: Find the needle and then the haystack

A case study on averages and margins Marginalized people are often marginalized in datasets. It’s an inversion of what happens IRL: in real life, minorities can’t help but stick out, but in data they’re lumped in with the rest. In data, marginalized people, if they are encoded at all, are often hidden in averages and other aggregate…

Data

7 min read

Inclusive data analysis: Find the needle and then the haystack
Inclusive data analysis: Find the needle and then the haystack
Data

7 min read


Apr 10, 2021

Community-driven growth and retention (“Let’s give em somethin to talk about”)

Low-cost community tactics for nonprofits and startups Traversing the internet is inherently lonely — it’s just you and a device — and things are doubly lonely during COVID. More and more, organizations are realizing that community can be a big differentiator for their cause or business. Indeed, “community” has become a bit of a buzzword across the…

Product Management

6 min read

Community-driven growth and retention (“Let’s give em somethin to talk about”)
Community-driven growth and retention (“Let’s give em somethin to talk about”)
Product Management

6 min read


Published in UX Collective

·Apr 10, 2021

What product inclusion and Latinx Immigrants can teach WhatsApp

I can’t stop thinking about this story from December by Documented NY (a nonprofit journalism organization) about how Latinx immigrants are scammed on WhatsApp. It makes for a good case study in how we might apply product inclusion principles. Oftentimes, talking to your most vulnerable users can reveal larger, systemic…

Product Management

4 min read

What product inclusion and Latinx Immigrants can teach WhatsApp
What product inclusion and Latinx Immigrants can teach WhatsApp
Product Management

4 min read


Jan 13, 2021

Great UXpectations: Lessons from Noom

Noom is one of my favorite apps at the moment. It helps people lose weight and eat better, a Weight Watchers for the millennial set. Noom’s effective techniques are backed by research and behavioral psychology. …

UX

4 min read

Great UXpectations: Lessons from Noom
Great UXpectations: Lessons from Noom
UX

4 min read


Jan 8, 2021

The “Privacy Tax” and other ethical expenses

Morals ain’t cheap — especially when they require engineering. I love this read on the “Privacy Tax” from The Markup’s EIC Julia Angwin. She defines it as: “the time and money orgs spend building or customizing tools that would be off-the-shelf for other websites.” The Markup is deeply committed to…

Privacy

2 min read

The “Privacy Tax” and other ethical expenses
The “Privacy Tax” and other ethical expenses
Privacy

2 min read

Michael Linares

Michael Linares

22 Followers

Product Director @ Crisis Text Line

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